Saturday, September 24, 2011

We have used and enjoyed our bar-b-que grill for over 3 years. (This is the grill one of Pat's customers gave us when she was moving.)It has been slowly falling apart, the bottom is hanging on by a thread, and I had been thinking about taking it to a welder to see if we could salvage the grill.

Before I had a chance to visit the welder Pat surprised me, for my Birthday, with a brand new grill; not just any brand new grill but a homemade grill.

This grill is heavy, made with thick steel and lots of extras. The wire rack you see above the regular grill is a box that sits inside the lid to hold hot dogs.

On the side is a Lazy Susan that works as a shelf to hold your pan of meat or seasonings.

On one side of the grill is a smoker box with three shelves to use for smoking chicken or sausage.

In order to move the hot grill or hot smoker racks Pat built two tools that hang on the side of the grill.

These tools work so well; you simply stick the prong end into the grill and lift. I always dread moving a hot grill but now it's so easy and I don't get anywhere near the flame.

Pat also built a griddle which I used this morning to make bacon.

There is a shelf to one side that works well for holding plates of finished foods and cooking utensils.

I also used the griddle to make pancakes;

And eggs.

When breakfast was done cooking I added steaks to the griddle; these are covered with onions and bell peppers from the garden.

The steaks slow cooked, in their own juices, until golden brown. And, I must say, they tasted amazing when I took a small bite.

At the last minute we added some potatoes to bake so we can enjoy them with the steaks.

While cooking this morning I felt like a modern day pioneer cooking my food over an open flame. Fun, fun, fun!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Recently I found a large vintage crock bowl at the thrift store for a whopping 12-dollars!

With fall weather in the air I decided to mix some bread dough, in my mixer, and then place the dough in the crock bowl to rise. I love how the dough looks so small sitting in the bottom of the bowl.

When the dough rose it didn't even reach halfway up the sides. I love how big this crock bowl is!

My bread and rolls turned out nice and will go perfect with the jelly I made early this morning. The bread sticks I made from this same batch of dough were devoured for lunch.

We ran out of jelly last week and Elizabeth asked when I was going to make more. (I just love how she knows it will be homemade instead of purchased from the store.) When I make jelly for us, and not to give as gifts, I don't bother to seal the jars; they go straight into the fridge when cooled.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

I have been working on a poodle skirt for Elizabeth which requires a little bit of hand sewing.The pattern states to glue on each pom pom but I was afraid glue wouldn't hold; so each little pom pom, more than 150 of them, have been stitched on by hand.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Our homeschool co-op group begins bright and early tomorrow. This year I will be teaching 2 toy making classes where we will be working with sanding wood and painting wood. Both tasks can get messy so I whipped up 15 child size aprons for the kids to wear during class. It took me two days to complete all of them.

One of Elizabeth's co-op classes will be an American Girl class. The girls will be bringing their dolls to class and Elizabeth requested I make her doll a poodle skirt.

I had so much trouble while making this outfit. My first mistake was cutting out the wrong skirt pattern (and having to go buy more fabric) and it went down hill from there. Thankfully I was finally able to make the outfit good enough to use.